NEW DELHI:Accenture employees pledge more than 10,000 hours to participate in their ‘Hour of Code’ tutorials to teach computer programming to students to promote access to computer science education.

This is the second year of the partnership when the company is collaborating with Code.org to support the initiative.

“The need for more computer science graduates has never been greater. Last year, there were 500,000 new computing jobs available in the U.S. but only 40,000 qualified graduates to fill them. We all must do more to close the skills gap and prepare students to join the workforce of the future,” said Paul Daugherty, Accenture’s chief technology and innovation officer.

He added that exposing each and every student – particularly girls and minorities ­­ to coding is just as critical as teaching reading, writing and arithmetic.

As part of the collaboration, Accenture leaders will join with employees to participate in Hour of Code activities around the world including:

“Every student in every school should have access to computer science in order to become literate citizens of today’s digital world and explore the possibilities of computer science careers,” said Hadi Partovi, co­founder and CEO of Code.org.